Check out last week’s events with our weekly recap!
September 28th-29th |Santiago del Estero, Argentina
With a win in round 9 and third place in round 10, local Argentinian Gonzalo Molina was undoubtedly the crowd favourite in Santiago del Estero, the last stopover of the 2019 UCI World Cup. The 24-year-old outpaced Ecuador’s Alfredo Campo and Frenchman Romain Mahieu to claim victory in Saturday’s 9th round, then finished 3rd behind 2015 UCI World Champion Niek Kimmann (NED) and David Graf (SUI) the following day. With six wins out of 10 rounds, Kimmann claims the overall UCI World Cup title in front of Campo and Graf.
It was a copy/paste affair in the women’s racing in Argentina, with the same podiums on both days: former UCI World Champion Laura Smulders (NED) 1, Natalia Afremova (RUS) 2, and Felicia Stancil (USA) 3. Smulders and Stancil finish the UCI World Cup 1st and 2nd respectively in the overall rankings, followed by UCI World Champion Alise Willoughby (USA), who did not race in Argentina.
September 28th |Stemwede, Germany
The fifth of eight rounds of the UCI Cycle-ball World Cup saw one of the most nail-biting finals so far, with UCI World Champions Höchst I (Markus Bröll and Patrick Schneider) having to fight tooth and nail to edge to victory over RV Obernfeld (André and Raphael Kopp). The fast, exciting and aggressive match saw RC Höchst with a 5:4 advantage at half time, before the Germans battled back to 5:5. The match went to extra time with RC Höchst finally claiming victory – their 20th for the Austrian duo – by 9:8. They lead the overall UCI World Cup ranking with three rounds remaining.
Seven countries were represented in Stemwede, including a team from Hong Kong, which finished in 10th place. Host club RSC Niedermehnen is celebrating its 100th jubilee this year, and in the absence of a team at that level, were represented by RC Iserlohn, winners of a local qualification tournament, who reached the semi-finals in Stemwede.
September 22nd-29th|Yorkshire, Great-britain
Some figures from an incredible week of racing in the north of England:
Daily race reports available at www.uci.org.